Sleeping Shield
by ChandaK562
Summary: Lord Volstagg's sons loose a spindle on Midgard that falls into the hands of Shield with dire consequences.
1. Chapter 1

"Lady Hela?" Volstagg's daughter Hildy called as she scurried through the buddy Asgardian marketplace, popping onto a table for a minute to make sure she was heading in the right direction, before finally reaching Hela, who was examining various skeins of thread with her maid Leah, while her brothers lounged nearby.

"Hildy?" Was she late for a magic lesson she had promised the little girl? Hela didn't think she was, and why did she suddenly have a very bad feeling? "Is something wrong?"

"My brothers did something bad." Hildy told her. "They were wanting to have a sword fight, instead of doing their homework like they were supposed to."

"A sword fight." Sharp things and Hildy's brothers, not a good combination. "How much blood is there and please tell me that everyone still has the number of limbs that they started out with!"

"They didn't get to use swords. Papa locked them all up, and Mama won't let them in the kitchen anymore after they lost all of the spoons trying to dig a hole to Nornheim."

No access to swords. That was probably the most responsible parenting decision Volstagg had ever made. And no kitchen meant no knives. "What did they use for this fight, then?" Obviously they had used something from the way Hildy was hopping up and down anxiously.

"They used a spindle from a spinning wheel." Hildy told her.

"A spindle?" That bad feeling was getting stronger. "And where did they get this spindle?" Please don't let those three imps have somehow got their hands on the spindle she was afraid they had!

"From the man who makes that nice gold thread for you. I can't pronounce his name right. Only I don't think that he said it was okay if my brothers borrowed his spindle and then they lost it."

Yes, they had got the spindle she had feared they had and she was definitely seeing a disaster. "They lost it? Why am I thinking it's safe to assume that your brothers didn't actually take the time to learn how to remove a spindle from an actual spinning wheel but they took one out of a locked case that said DANGER?"

"That's it." Hildy said with a nod. "They waited until Mister…. I really can't pronounce his name."

"Rumplestiltskin but he uses Mister Gold now." Hela said. And what did she have that she could offer him to make up for the trouble Hildy's brothers had caused?

"They waited until Mister Gold was fixing his wife a cup of tea and then they grabbed the spindle, and they broke his nice case too."

"Where are your brothers? And where did they manage to lose a cursed spindle?" If someone injured themselves before she could find the thing and get it safely locked up again…. How strong was the sleeping curse? Strong enough to cover an entire palace, she knew, but could it somehow extend further? If it could cover a city and the spindle was in Asgard...

"They dropped it over the Bifrost. They think it's somewhere in Midgard." Hildy said. "And they got bored when it didn't break anything when it fell. They're trying to climb the fence and get into Idunn's garden to raid her apple tree."

"They dropped a cursed spindle that causes a hundred years of sleep onto Midgard?" After all of the troubles Asgardians had caused for that poor planet, did they really need to add a cursed spindle to the mix?

"A spindle? Is that what it was?" Heimdell said as he came stalking up. "Where are they?"

"Idunn's garden, hopefully snacking on her apples and reducing themselves to babyhood for a few months." Hela said. "Heimdell, did you happen to see where the spindle landed?"

He nodded. "I was wanting to make sure they didn't break any more windows, or almost hit skydivers in the head like they did when they threw those rocks." Dark elves, he would happily take a dozen invasions by the dark elves over one visit to his bridge by Lord Volstagg's three impish sons. "Wait, is that the spindle with…."

"With the sleeping curse on it. The boys seem to have borrowed it without permission. Tell me where it landed. I've got to get that thing back before someone ends up taking a very long nap behind a wall of very sharp thorns." And maybe with some luck she could get it back before poor Agent Coulson heard about it as well.

"Victoria?" Jasper knocked and then poked his head into Victoria's office. "Do you have a minute? I found the strangest thing outside, and I was wondering if you could have a clue what it might have fallen off of."

"What is it?" Victoria asked as she looked up from the long list she was putting together of paperwork and reports that John was very late on submitting. It was fast reaching the length of her list of the sins of Coulson's team, and she suspected if things went on much longer she was going to get carpal tunnel.

"It's weird. It almost looks like the spindle from a spinning wheel but I don't know why one of those things would be around here." Jasper said as she held the object out to Victoria. "Have the scientists been messing around with anything new, because I can't figure out what it could have came off of so I can return it."

Victoria reached out and then jerked her hand back, a bright red drop of blood beading on her finger. "You don't hand something sharp to someone with the pointy end first!" As she spoke, she suddenly found herself feeling incredibly tired, her eyelids heavy. So sleepy all of a sudden. Sleepy, and she had just pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel? Why did that sound familiar? But before she could think more, her eyes had slipped shut and she tumbled out of her chair, slipping into a deep sleep before she hit the floor.

"Victoria?" Jasper dropped the spindle and reached for his communicator to call for help, but suddenly he was very tired as well, and seconds later he was on the floor, snoozing away as outside thorns sprouted all around the building, wrapping it in a thick wall as throughout the Hub agents everywhere dropped off, joining their leader in sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

"Phil?" Melinda May called over the BUS's speaker system. "Are you close to a window? We have a problem!"

"What in the…." Coulson looked out one of the plane's windows and blinked hard. He could't be seeing what he thought he was seeing. A giant wall of thorns completely covering the Hub? Why would a giant wall of thorns be completely covering the Hub? He blinked again, turning his head for a moment before looking back. They were still there and it definitely looked like thorns, covering the Hub so thickly that he could barely tell there was a building beneath. What had the scientists there been working on that had caused that? He got to his feet and started towards the cockpit to talk to Melinda. There had to be a distress call going out from the Hub to go along with those thorns.

"AC!" Skye came hurrying in with a guilty looking Jemma and Fitz behind her. "Have you looked out? Did you see the thorns?"

"Sir, what's going on?" Jemma asked. All of those thorns, and did they just cover the outside of the building or could they be on the inside too?

"I'm not sure what's going on. I was about to go and see if the Hub's sending out any messages." Coulson said.

"A giant wall of thorns?" Skye and the two scientists followed him as he headed for the cockpit. "I know Agent Hand doesn't like our team much, but she's turned to gardening to keep us away from her now?"

"Maybe she found out about ?" Fitz speculated.

"Match…. What?" Coulson stopped and turned to look at them. Simmons was looking extremely guilty. That didn't seem good. What had they done that would undoubtedly lead to a very angry Victoria?

"Online dating." Jemma said. "It's an online dating site. It was Skye's idea, Sir!"

"You wrote the profile for it! And Fitz found the picture! Don't blame it all on me!" Skye said. "We were just trying to help Agent Hand out. She's so cranky all the time and I got to thinking that maybe if she got out more and met someone nice…"

They had signed Victoria up for online dating? Suddenly the thorns were making sense, although he would have really expected Victoria to just try shooting them down. "We are going to have a very long talk about this after I calm Victoria down." He said with a glare at the three of them before starting towards the cockpit again.

"Sir, we really were trying to help her." Jemma said as they trailed along behind him. "There are some very nice people online. We're sure if she gave it a chance…."

"We will talk about this later. Any signals from the Hub telling us what's going on?" Coulson asked as he came into the cockpit. "Or threats to shoot us down?" But with all of the thorns, were any of the Hubs defenses even working?

"Nothing." Melinda said and then looked at Skye and Fitzsimmons. "What did they do that might make Victoria want to shoot us?"

"They signed her up for online dating." Coulson said. "You're not picking up anything?"

"Online dating? They signed her up for…." Now Melinda was really worried. Their junior team members had signed Victoria up for online dating, and she wasn't on the comm, letting them know what she was going to do when she got her hands on them? "We could set down outside of the Hub if we have to."

"Do it. We need to find out what's going on." Coulson said. Radio silence. The more he thought about that, the more worried he felt. Radio silence and a building covered with thorns? What was going on?

"Sir, are those thorns out there?" Ward said as he came into the cockpit, that was getting very cramped. "What did the scientists do?"

"I don't have a clue. We're going to sit down outside, and see if we might have better luck getting in touch with someone inside from the ground." Coulson said. "And once we figure out what's going on, I'll be having a very long talk with the three of you about proper respect for senior agents."

"Proper respect for…." Ward put out a hand and stopped Fitzsimmons and Skye as they followed Coulson out of the cockpit so Melinda could breathe and hopefully land the plane. "What did you do to Agent Hand?"

"Signed her up for ." Fitz told him.

"We were trying to help her!" Skye added. "She's always so grumpy, and I thought if she got out, and found a nice girlfriend…."

"You signed Agent Hand up for…. Where was I when you did this?" He was supposed to be supervising the three of them. Victoria was probably going to have a long talk with his dad when she found out what an awful job he had done of supervising the science bunnies and Skye.

"In the shower." Jemma said.

In the shower. Wonderful. He couldn't even take a shower without the rabbits he was assigned to watch getting into trouble. So he was either going to have to give up personal hygiene or…. "We will be showering together from now on."

"Showering together? Co-ed showers, not what I signed up for." Skye said. "And could four people even fit into the shower anyway?"

"We'll all wear blindfolds. It will be fine. And we'll save water. It will be good for the planet." Should he call his dad and tell him what Skye and the bunnies had done, so he would know to expect an angry call from Victoria later in the day? No, better to keep quiet and cling to the likely futile hope that Coulson and Melinda could talk her down and convince her that really no harm had been meant. Yeah, he was probably dreaming if he thought that would happen.

"Still no signal?" Coulson asked Melinda when she joined them at the slowly lowering exit ramp ten minutes later.

"Nothing. I'm getting worried." Melinda said. She hadn't been able to pick up any sort of signal from the HUB. If this was a response to what Fitzsimmons and Skye had done, they ought to be picking up threats, and if it was a science experiment gone crazy, shouldn't they be hearing a call for help? She had even tried Victoria's cell phone with no response. Was it possible that those thorns were in the building too, instead of just covering the outside? No, she shook her head, pushing away the horrible images that conjured up as the ramp fully lowered and they heard voices.

"Do you think there will be a dragon soon? There was a dragon before with this, wasn't there?" Hildy asked.

"If there is a dragon this time, Jory will talk to her and convince her to go on her way, " Hela looked up from the phone she was holding as she heard the noise of the plane landing. "Darcy, could you please hold this?" She said as she passed the intern's phone back to her. "I think there are some people here I need to make an apology to."

It was worse than she had expected. Not that apologizing to a random Shield official was something she was looking forward to after what her father had done, but this was infinitely worse. Why did the first awake Shield agent on the scene have to be Agent Coulson?

"Excuse me, but is that a snake?" Skye demanded. "An alarmingly large snake?"

"And does that horse have more legs than usual, or do I need to get my eyes examined?" Fitz asked.

Coulson barely held back a moan. Giant snake, large wolf, horse with eight legs and a girl who…. Okay, she didn't fit the mythological description, but other than that the group matched perfectly. Loki's kids.

"Good day, Agent Coulson!" Hela called. "I would like to offer my most humble apologies for this…." But was there really a good way to put an incident that was going to result in the poor man's co-workers taking an extremely long nap? "I'm very sorry about the thorns. We are trying to work out how to remove them right now, I promise you."

"You're from Asgard, aren't you?" But what place could produce a group like this besides Asgard?

"I'm Lady Hela, princess of Asgard, and queen of Helheim and Neifheim." Hela said with a wince. "My brothers Jormungundr, Fenrir and Sleipnir, my maid and friend Leah, and my apprentice Hildy. I really am very, very sorry about the thorns. They will be gone shortly. I hope."

"This is from Asgard?" Melinda asked. Phil looked like he was about to demand to know if Loki was around somewhere because a little stabbing and death were preferable to dealing with an angry Victoria. Best if someone else took charge.

"No. It might be a bit easier if this was from Asgard. At least then I might know how to reverse it." Hela said. "I am afraid we are to blame for the thorns being here, though."

"My brothers did it." Hildy said. "Are you going to want to lock them up like you locked up Prince Loki? Will you lock them up for a long time?"

"They're not going to lock up your brothers." Hela said. "We're trying to spare this poor planet more misery. We can't let them lock up your brothers, no matter how safe that would make Asgard. Really, I am very sorry about this."

"What happened?" Phil finally got himself together enough to ask.

"My brothers stole a spindle with a curse on it, and threw it off the Bifrost when they got bored, and someone pricked themselves on it." Hildy said. "Are you sure you wouldn't want to lock them up? I could give you my allowance if that would help."

"Wait. Wait. Someone pricking themselves on a spindle?" Skye said with a look of confusion. "Isn't that the plot for Sleeping Beauty? Are you saying Sleeping Beauty is real?"

"I'm afraid so." Hela said, just as Darcy came walking up.

"That Mister Gold fellow called. He said the only thing he knows of that can cut through the thorns is something called the Sword of Truth. Which he has no clue where to find. He thinks it's in another dimension. His wife's going to keep looking and you owe me an Ipod." she said as she glared at Coulson.

"You're serious? Sleeping Beauty is real?" Skye asked. "And why do you owe someone an Ipod, AC?"

"I'll reimburse you for the Ipod." Phil said before Darcy could get into the Ipod issue. "But is Skye right? You're saying Sleeping Beauty is real?"

"I'm afraid so." Hela said. "The spindle Hildy's brothers took was enchanted with a sleeping curse. As soon as she told me what her brothers had done, we hurried here to try to find the spindle before someone could be harmed, but I'm afraid we were too late."

"You're saying these thorns are the result of some kind of spell? What about the people inside?" Maybe if he didn't think about magic or the Asgardians, and focused on his co-workers he could keep from losing his mind.

"Someone must have pricked their finger on the spindle." Hela told him. "The prick activates the curse, and put everyone in the building to sleep."

"They're asleep?" Well, that would explain the radio silence, Melinda realized. "How do we wake them up?" Enough strange things had resulted from their contacts with Asgard. She probably shouldn't doubt that a cursed spindle that sent everyone in a major base to sleep was possible as well.

"True love's kiss. If the person who pricked themselves receives true love's kiss, then that should awaken everyone trapped under the curse. But of course that is assuming we figure a way through the thorns."

"What happens if there isn't a way through the thorns?" Jemma asked.

"Then everyone within the building will be asleep for the next hundred years, until the curse runs its course, I'm afraid."


	3. Chapter 3

"Jemma?" Coulson said. A hundred years. If something wasn't done, everyone in the Hub was going to sleep for a hundred years? On the up side, Victoria taking an extended nap would mean that he wouldn't have to see if the Witness Protection Program had room for two scientists and a hacker, but still…. "Is that possible?"

Jemma frowned for a second as she thought before nodding. "It could be a chemical reaction to the blood that became airborne. I'm not sure why a kiss would reverse it but…."

"Endorphins maybe?" Fitz suggested.

"Endorphins. That could do it." Jemma agreed. "And…." She nodded again. "It's definitely possible that whatever caused this can do exactly what Lady Hela said, Sir."

"We should call Fury." Melinda said as she looked at the building with concern. After some of the stuff she had seen in her years with Shield, she didn't need Jemma and Fitz's attempt to explain things to know that what the Asgardian was telling them was highly possible.

"Until we know more of what's going on in there, I'm not sure what we can tell him." Coulson said before turning to Hela once more and barely resisting the urge to ask if her father might be somewhere around, because another stabbing would be preferable to having to deal with hundreds of his co-workers possibly facing a 100 year sleep. "Asgard doesn't have anything that might cut through the thorns?"

"We have numerous things that we could try." Hela said. "The issue would be what could be tried without damaging the structural integrity of the building and risking the lives of those trapped inside."

That unfortunately made sense. "So we need to figure out where people are in there, and hopefully find an area of the building that's unoccupied and non-essential for holding things together before we can even try anything, right?" Coulson said.

Hela nodded.

"Okay. Fitz, Jemma, break out the dwarves. Let's see if we can get them in there and get a better idea of what's going on."

"I'll see about finding a plan for the HUB. There should be something on the Shield servers, right?" Skye said. "If the dwarves can get in, it might give us an idea of areas to concentrate on first."

"What if we can't find a safe place to try to break through?" Ward asked. "What then?" His dad. He needed to call his dad and let him know what was going on. John would be frantic to learn that Victoria had been effected by some alien item or other dimensional item, or whatever the thing was that caused this.

"I'm really not sure." Hela said. "Hopefully Mister Gold will call back with more information. He has vastly more experience with sleeping curses than I do. Do you know where that scepter that Papa had is? It's possible it might be useful. I'm not entirely sure where in the world Papa found that thing, but it did seem to be fairly powerful."

Loki's scepter. Something he had never wanted to see again but if it might help…. After a moment's thought, Coulson shook his head. "The scientists sent the scepter to the HUB a few weeks ago to let Agent Hand's people take a look at it. I'm fairly sure it's still there and hasn't been moved back to the Sandbox yet."

"If that's not an option then…. There's Excaliber, but I'm afraid that's in another dimension as well." Hela thought for a moment. "There's the Ebon Blade, but it does have the problem of a curse as well. Leah, do you remember if that curse was insanity or immobility?"

"It might be both." Leah said. "But maybe there would be a way to work around it?"

"Let's see if we can figure out what's going on in there, first. I would prefer it if we only have to break one curse today. Are the dwarves ready?" Coulson asked as Fitz and Jemma drug the equipment over.

Fitz nodded. "I just hope there's an opening in the the thorns that they can fit through."

"I just hope those thorns are only on the outside of the building." Melinda murmured as Fitz launched the dwarves. And she hoped that if they were only outside that their sending the dwarves in wouldn't somehow cause them to spread.

"Agent Hand must be so totally proud. There's no way anyone's getting into her building without her say-so, which is kind of bad since she's taking a long nap at the moment." Skye said almost thirty minutes later when much to the frustration of the group they had learned that getting through the thorns wasn't the biggest problem for the dwarves. Getting inside the building was. There wasn't an opening anywhere that would be big enough for one of the drones to fit through.

"Is that Agent Hand's office?" Jemma asked as she looked at the footage coming back from Sneezy, who was hovering outside of a window.

Coulson nodded as the dwarf moved slightly. He could see Jasper, fast asleep on the floor, and Victoria, and….

"Look! It's the spindle!" Hildy cried as she spotted the item in question on the floor by Victoria's fingers.

The spindle. "Jemma, can you zoom in?" But Coulson had a sudden bad feeling. A spindle by Victoria's hand, and he was almost positive that was a bead of blood on one of her fingers. "What did you say about how this can be fixed?" He asked Hela. "Something about the person who pricked themselves…."

"True love's kiss. The person who pricked themselves has to be kissed by someone who truly loves them for the curse to be broken. Until that person awakens, I'm afraid that the rest of those under the spell will remain as they are."

"I was afraid that was what you said." And the person who had apparently pricked their finger was Victoria Hand. How could this possibly get any worse?


	4. Chapter 4

Before Coulson could think of how the situation could possibly get any worse, with the HUB surrounded by thorns, everyone asleep and Victoria needing true love's kiss to wake the building up, his phone rang. Director Fury, he saw as he glanced down at the number. Yes, he wasn't going to have to imagine ways this could get worse because it just did. "Director?"

"Coulson, I have been trying for the last thirty minutes to contact Victoria without an answer. Isn't your team supposed to be at the HUB today? What did your people do to her?" Fury demanded. Coulson's people were good, he knew that, but at the rate they were driving Victoria crazy, he was probably going to have to book a trip for her to Tahiti for real to keep her from quitting. "Phil, I know you love your team, but I'm not sure how well this is working out here. You can't just let your people drive a senior agent like Victoria insane all the time!"

"Sir, I pulled up an outside visual of the HUB." Maria Hill said holding out a tablet to show him. "The interior cameras don't seem to be working for some reason but… You have to see this!"

Thorns? Were those thorns? "Coulson, what did your people do? Why is the HUB covered in thorns?"

"It wasn't my people! Why do people keep thinking that my team…. It's Asgardian, Sir. Or at least Asgardian caused."

"Is that Director Fury?" Hela called. "Please give him my sincerest apologies for the thorns. And is there anything, anything at all that we can do to make up for the trouble? The crafter who makes grandfather's eyepatches does excellent work. Perhaps I could interest him in one as part of compensation?"

"Who is that?" Fury asked. Asgardian. Please let him have misheard what Coulson said. After the last few Asgardian related disasters, he didn't think he could handle another one.

"Lady Hela. She's here due to the thorn situation." Coulson said.

"Hela? Wait, isn't that one of Loki's kids?"

"It looks like more than one Loki's kids is there." Maria said as she adjusted the video feed and spotted the group. "He really has a giant horse for a kid? Maybe he had a few reasons to be cranky? That's got to be painful."

No, Fury wasn't going to think about Loki, horses and…. He shook his head, forcing that thought away. "What happened?" He demanded.

How to explain this. Coulson thought for a moment trying to figure out an explanation that wouldn't lead to the director desperately wanting to rip out hair that he didn't have. "A group of Asgardian children were playing with some sort of inter-dimensional artifact that they tossed off the Bifrost. It must have landed outside the HUB, someone found it and brought it in, and it ended up activated."

"What does it do?" Fury demanded.

"It put everyone in the building to sleep, Sir."

"Sleep? You're saying everyone is asleep in a building surrounded by thorns. Coulson, that's the plot of Sleeping Beauty."

"I know. I know. Fitz, can you send the footage from the dwarves to the Director's computer, please?" Maybe if Fury saw what was going on inside, he wouldn't decide to book him for another long vacation somewhere a lot less pleasant than his rather confusing memories indicated Tahiti was.

"Is that a spindle?" Maria said a few minutes later as she watched over Fury's shoulder as the footage ran. "And does it look like Victoria pricked her finger on it?"

"Coulson, are you telling me that this artifact is a spindle that makes people fall asleep?" Fury demanded.

"I'm afraid so." Coulson said with a wince.

This couldn't be happening. This was something out of a fairy story, but there was Victoria on the floor of her office, spindle by her hand and blood on her finger. "What do we have to do to wake them up?"

"Before we can even think about waking them up, we have to figure out how to get through the thorns and into the building. Which is a bit of a problem because we need to find a way in without risking injuring anyone inside. We're working on it." Fury was already upset. Better not to add to it by giving him the happy news that to wake everyone up Victoria Hand was going to have to get true love's kiss.

"Alright. Alright. I'll get any assignments that were supposed to come in through the HUB diverted to the Cube." Fury said after a moment's thought. "And I'll get Blake to take over for Victoria and Jasper." He couldn't believe this. Two of his senior agents were unconscious due to something out of a fairy tale! "Whatever you have to do, fix this, fast!"

He put his head in his hands for a moment after ending the call, barely able to keep from ripping at hair that he was missing. "Maria, get me a plane." He trusted Coulson but he had to see this situation for himself.

"Director Fury didn't scream. That's a good thing, right?" Skye asked in what she hoped was a positive tone of voice.

"It means we need to get this situation fixed quickly. Cutting through the thorns. You said something about a sword to cut the thorns." Coulson said to Hela. "What about Lady Sif and that sword of hers?"

"I'm afraid Papa sent Lady Sif on a diplomatic mission to Xandar that it would be very difficult to call her back from." Hela said.

"Isn't your father supposed to be locked up or something for invading our planet?" Skye asked.

"My grandparents thought up a more appropriate punishment for Papa. The placed him in charge of Asgard while they're away on their vacation." Hela said.

"Didn't he want to be in charge?" Melinda said with a frown. "How is giving him what he wants a punishment?"

"I have brothers." Hildy said.

"She has three brothers. The brothers who managed to put one of your bases under a sleeping curse. Papa has to deal with them, all three of them, and I'm afraid he has only two hands and limited magic at the moment thanks to grandmother. And that doesn't take into account having to deal with Lord Fandrel, Lord Volstagg, their attempts to repair the damage to the royal palace that seem to have caused more damage than the Dark Elves' attack, and the antics of the average citizens who are managing to be even more contentious of usual of late. Papa is longing for his prison cell, you have my word."

"Yesterday my brothers made one of our teachers run screaming up a tree." Hildy said. "She wouldn't come down for five hours and last week our other teacher ran off for the hills and no one knows where he is. And my papa was forgot to use nails when was supposed to be fixing one of the palace walls, and he made Lady Hela's papa cry."

"So Loki's being punished." Coulson said.

"When we left Asgard to try to retrieve the spindle, Hildy's brothers were climbing the fence around Lady Idunn's garden to steal apples. I expect a note from Papa at any time asking if Shield might be interested in pressing charges against him." Hela said. "As for a sword that could cut through the thorns, I could contact my grandmother. She might know of something and I'm sure she and grandfather would be very happy to help. They were quite pleased with your recommendation of Tahiti as a vacation location."

"What…" But then it hit him, how he had been saying Tahiti was a magical place what felt like every five seconds. But the Asgardians had heard it? "Does your uncle know that…."

"That you faked your death?" Darcy said. "I tweeted Jane. And Tony Stark, but it might take a while for him to see the tweet. He's got like a million people following him and sending him messages. And along with that Ipod you owe me thirty songs too."

"I will reimburse you for the Ipod. I will reimburse you for the songs." Coulson told her. "But what can we do to get this situation taken care of?"

"I'll contact Grandmother. Hopefully she'll have an idea of where to find something that might cut the thorns that is in this dimension, and that is uncursed." Hela said.

"We could take samples from the thorns. Maybe would could find a weakness." Jemma suggested.

"Okay, let's do that." Coulson said. "Anything that might give us a way through those thorns safely, let's give it a try. We've got to get this thing fixed and fast."


	5. Chapter 5

"The laser isn't working." Jemma said, frowning at the failure of the laser cutter on Bashful's failure to even make a mark on one of the thorny plants covering the HUB.

"There was a dragon when this happened before." Hildy said. "I don't think fire can hurt the thorns. Are you sure that someone wouldn't want to lock my brothers up for doing this? So our teacher can come down from the tree and so our other teacher might come back from the hills? His husband's really upset."

"Dragons are real?" Fitz said.

Hela nodded. "Most real. I have a book. Actually, I have several books that you might find interesting on them. The chapters on the space dragons might prove most useful intelligence for Shield some day. I'll send them along as soon as this is taken care of." If they could find a way to fix the problem. She had written a letter and sent it to her grandmother by Ikol, but there had been no reply yet, and scientific attempts to tackle the thorn problem didn't seem to have achieved much.

"Okay, heat and lasers aren't going to do this if these things can stand up to dragons, which I am really alarmed to learn are real." Skye said. "What about cold?"

"Liquid nitrogen, maybe?" Fitz said.

"It could make it harder to analyze a sample." Jemma said as she considered the situation. But if it was their only option, maybe she could make it work. Possibly spraying the liquid further back on a thorny fine would cause a larger section to break away and leave her with a sample untouched by the cold to examine. "I think I can do it, though. Call Bashful back, Fitz, and let's get him set up with the liquid nitrogen."

"It looks like it's doing something." Skye said a few minutes later as they watched the liquid being sprayed onto a thorny branch at least a good food away from the tip through the monitors.

"Alright." Jemma said. "Let's see if Bashful can break it off, and…" But before she could finish the sentence, the vines surrounding the branch they were attempting to break were moving, lashing out, and Fitz was barely able to pull the dwarf back in time to keep it from being smashed.

"Are those things alive? And I mean in a way that plants normally aren't alive?" Skye demanded.

"I don't think so." Hela said, but after a moment's thought she added. "I'm afraid it might not be beyond the realm of possibility that they have a degree of intelligence, though."

"Any luck?" Coulson asked as he came over.

"Does bad luck count?" Fitz said. "I'm going to have to run a diagnostic on Bashful to make sure there isn't damage. I think one of those fines might have grazed him."

"There's nothing? Nothing at all?"

"I'm very sorry, Sir." Jemma said. "I'm sure that I could tell you more and hopefully develop a plan to deal with this if I had samples to work with, but I'm afraid taking the samples is proving to be rather problematic to say the least."

"Maybe Agent Hand will appreciate getting to take a nice nap?" Skye offered. "She might be a lot less grumpy when she wakes up."

"I don't think she's going to be in a good mood if she wakes up to find out that we failed to rescue her from a hundred year nap." Coulson replied.

"The cold did seem to damage the thorns." Fitz looked up from where he was examining Bashful for a moment as he spoke. "The problem is that the other vines reacted to the exposure before we could do anything. Maybe if we could make a colder spray or a wider spray?"

"I do have a number of citizens of Helheim who have the gift of cold manipulation." Hela offered. "And some of my own gifts can create an intense cold as well. But I would be very concerned about using such things without knowing that the people trapped inside might not be endangered as a result."

"That's the problem I see too, Sir." Jemma said. "Trying to find a way to get through the thorns or at least to examine them to try to find a way to get through them that isn't going to endanger innocent people inside the building."

Coulson wanted to scream, or at least ask Hela if her father might be interested in taking a few minutes out from his punishment to drop by for another go at stabbing him. Stabbing and death or a long stay in medical would at least spare him from having to deal with this. The HUB was surrounded by thorns that there seemed to be no way through, and hundreds of his co-workers, including Victoria and Jasper were trapped inside, facing a hundred years of sleep if they couldn't figure out some way to save them. How could this possibly get worse?

Before he had a chance to curse himself for thinking that, Coulson heard a plane, and looked up to see another aircraft with Shield markings approaching.

Worse, this was definitely much worse, and if he didn't think it would totally destroy Fitz and Jemma's moral, he would moan or beat his head against something, was Coulson's first thought when he heard John Garrett's familiar voice a few minutes later after the new plane had landed.

"Phil, what did your people do to Vic?" John called, staring in shock at the HUB and the thorns covering it for a moment before hurrying to join the group with Trip following him. "She wasn't in a good mood this morning, and was threatening to remove things if I didn't get the paperwork I was behind on in, but this…. What did your people do?"

"Why does everyone assume that my team did something to provoke her?" Coulson said. "Never mind." He said before John could give the details on exactly why people might suspect his team of being the ones to aggravate Victoria. "Some sort of inter-dimensional artifact caused this. We're trying to figure out a way to fix it now."

"What? What happened?" John demanded. Thinking that this was the result of Vic dealing with Coulson and his team was one thing, something he could laugh off, but he didn't like the sound of an artifact being involved at all.

"I'm very sorry." Hela said. "I'm Lady Hela of Asgard, queen of Helheim and Neiffheim, and these are my brothers Jormangundr, Fenrir and Sleipnir, my maid and friend Leah and my apprentice Hildy. A group of Asgardian children took a very dangerous artifact and tossed it off the Bifrost into your realm. By the time we arrived to try to recover it, it had already been activated. I'm very sorry."

Asgardian? If Fury knew something Asgardian was on the loose again, he would be going nuts. John almost smiled at the picture that created in his head before remembering the situation at hand, the HUB covered with thorns due to some alien thing and Vic trapped inside. "What's the timeline on fixing this? What does the thing do anyway, besides causing a lot of plant growth?"

"Have you ever heard the Sleeping Beauty story?" Skye said before Coulson could think up a way to gently tell John that the timeline on fixing things might be a hundred years. "If you have, think of that. Everyone inside the building's going to be taking a nap for the next hundred years if we don't figure out a way to get inside. And you know, even if we do get inside, Agent Hand's the one who has to get true love's kiss to wake everyone up, right? Am I the only one sensing that's going to be a way bigger problem than the thorns?"

"What?" John's eyes went wide with shock. "Phil, she's kidding, isn't she?"

Coulson shook his head as he motioned for John to take a look at the footage of Victoria's office, still broadcasting from Sleepy. "They're asleep, all of them, and unless we're able to get in, and figure a way to reverse this once we get inside, everyone in the building might honestly spend the next hundred years fast asleep."


End file.
